This weekend, I’ll be off at TeslaCon V, talking books, steampunks, and hanging out with dinosaurs. I have been excited about this convention for months.

My panel schedule will be light, but you can catch me at the below panels or wandering around the convention. Of course, any authors or agents interested in an appointment, feel free to contact me beforehand or on-site.

Friday, November 7, 2014
10:00 am, Room 2
So You Want to Publish Your Steampunk Novel – Publishing tips for the retrofuturist set. An exploration of the publishing process starting with looking for an agent and submitting your manuscript and continuing with an insider’s view about how the book business works. Led by Tor editor Diana Pho and others, the panel gives advice drawn from their various experiences across the industry. Plus, a frank discussion on where steampunk literature is heading, tropes to avoid, and how other steampunk media impacts your steampunk book.

13% of people attending comic conventions report having unwanted comments of a sexual nature made about them at conventions. 8% of people of all genders reported they had been groped, assaulted, or raped at a comic convention. (Source: Game Skinny)

53% of all transgender/ non-binary individuals reported verbal harassment in places of “public accommodation”; this includes hotels, restaurants, buses, public spaces.
(Source: Transequality.org)

LGBTQ people of color were 1.82 times as likely to experience physical violence compared to white LGBTQ people. Transgender people were 1.67 times as likely to experience threats and intimidation compared to LGBTQ non-transgender survivors and victims. (Source: National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs)

Like this:

Last year, I reviewed Joseph Bruchac’s pulse-racing KILLER OF ENEMIES. There is more to this post-apoc steampunk world in the prequel ROSE EAGLE, coming from Tu Books as an original e-novella. In the Black Hills of South Dakota, we are introduced to seventeen-year-old Rose Eagle of the Lakota tribe who is trying to find her place in a world in turmoil after a mysterious Cloud has destroyed all electronic technology.

Before the Silver Cloud, the Lakota were forced to work in the Deeps, mining for ore so that the Ones, the overlords, could continue their wars. But when the Cloud came and enveloped Earth, all electronics were shut off. Some miners were trapped in the deepest Deeps and suffocated, but the Lakota were warned to escape, and the upper Deeps became a place of refuge for them in a post-Cloud world.

In the midst of this chaos, Rose Eagle’s aunt has a dream: Rose will become a medicine woman, a healer. She sends Rose into the Black Hills on a quest to find healing for their people.

Gangly and soft-spoken, Rose is no warrior. She seeks medicine, not danger. Nevertheless, danger finds her, but love and healing soon follow. When Rose Eagle completes her quest, she may return with more than she ever thought she was looking for.

Friday 10 – 10:50
Q&A with Editor Diana Pho: Daley Library, Room 1-470
Pho answers every question you’ve ever had about book editors and publishers — or as many as she can fit into an hour. An informal discussion with Diana Pho.

Friday 12 – 12:50
What are today’s alternatives to “traditional” publishing, and how do you decide if one of them is good fit for you? The publishing industry has undergone, and continues to undergo, massive and rapid change. The array of publishing options now runs the gamut from traditional publishing to self-publishing, each with its own characteristics. What is happening in the middle of the spectrum? How is a writer to decide what path to follow? What are the relative pros and cons, and what are the questions to ask oneself in order to ensure a positive publishing experience? This panel will address small press publishing, self-publishing, crowdfunding, social media, and more. As it occurs over lunchtime, please feel free to bring a brown bag lunch. (Anjali Mitter Duva, Mary Anne Mohanraj (m.), Rajdeep Paulus, Diana Pho)

Friday 2:00 – 2:50
Writing and Arts Activism: Institute for the Humanities, open room
Writers discuss the intersection between art and activism; how can we use our work to support / challenge society’s assumptions and strictures? What pitfalls stand in the way of the artist-activist? What strategies can we use to make our activism more effective?

Saturday, 11:00 – 11:50
Crossing Genre Boundaries: Daley Library, Room 1-470
We’ve all seen the epic South Asian family novel, a tale of marriage and politics and history and social conflict. What other kinds of S. Asian fiction is out there? Who are our science fiction and fantasy writers, our mystery, spy novel, romance, and political thriller authors? Writers discuss the challenges of breaking out of the ‘literary’ ghetto as an ethnic writer, and recommend favorite work in other genres. (Vidhu Aggarwal, Sonali Dev, Phiroozeh Romer, Mina Khan, Diana Pho (m.))

Saturday 12:00 – 12:50
Q&A with Editor Diana Pho: Institute for the Humanities, open room
Pho answers every question you’ve ever had about book editors and publishers — or as many as she can fit into an hour. An informal discussion with Diana Pho.

Like this:

Leonardo Ramirez, young adult author, has a dream: to create an animated short of his young adult steampunk series The Jupiter Chronicles. With the cooperation of Magnetic Dreams Studios — and readers like yourselves interested in diversity in children’s entertainment — he hopes to make that dream come true.

Ramirez plans to launch a crowd-funding campaign to help fund his goal. Interested in learning more about The Jupiter Chronicles? From his website is the series premise:

Ian Castillo is a young boy who, together with his sister Callie, discover their secret; they are the son and daughter of a Jovian king whose world had been subjugated by the evil Lord Phobos of Mars. After a great battle was fought they returned to the steam-powered world of Jupiter where Fireflights and Skyrockets rule the air. Now, as part of the newly reborn Chrono Legion, Ian struggles to find his place in a world powered by steam. The fate of the Jovian Realms are in his hands as he fights against the Martian Doomslayers and seeks to protect Earth from what is to come. A much deeper struggle lies within him. With no father to guide him, Ian desperately searches for the answer to the question he’s been asking himself all of his life:

Why did my father leave me?

Readers can check out his website for more information, including details about the talented creative team behind The Jupiter Chronicles, and watch that space for details about their upcoming crowd-funding venture. You can also sign up for their mailing list here.

Dragoncon attendees stand with Ferguson at the Race and Gender Issues in Alternate History panel.

Dragon*Con has always been a highlight of my convention circuit. This year consisted of five panels, lots of interesting discussion, new faces and old, plus raising money for a good cause. I’m especially grateful for the sincere responsiveness and discussion at the Race and Gender Issues in Alternate History panel that happened on Saturday, where the audience showed their solidarity for the events in Ferguson. I also want to thank the many, many attendees who bought black ribbons and donated to the Mike Brown Legal Defense Fund while I was on-panel.

I’ve received some pushback from readers who asked, “Why bring personal politics to an alternate history panel/ a steampunk blog?” First of all, I am mystified by the idea that people thought that my work in steampunk isn’t political, especially since the blog’s mission statement since its founding in 2009 states:

Steampunk, because it’s an aesthetic & a subgenre inspired by a time period fraught with a complex social and political history, is never apolitical. The nineteenth century was a time of intellectual achievement, innovation, and geopolitical expansion. At the same time, that greatness came at the expense of slavery, oppression, social inequality, and racism. These problems did not go away once the Victorian era ended, and in fact, the social scars are still visible upon our society today. So when speaking about steampunk from non-Eurocentric settings, difficult issues about race, class, marginalized histories, and cultural appropriation will be addressed.

Also, some thoughts about the role of alternate history in our lives. Speculative fiction is based on fantasies and people usually interpret that as irrelevant to daily life. But the power of a fantasy is related to everyday experiences and histories. Stories that intrigue are stories that people connect with, compare to, or contrast against their own personal stories — even when based on an alternate history or in deep space or in another world entirely. In fact, the significance of steampunk’s “what if?” premise is lost if the reader can’t compare that “what if” to the actual events that the story is playing against. The function of alternate history itself is based on exploring new stories based on the stories we already know (or presume to know).

Reading steampunk is not only entertaining, but it is engaging because it actively posits that the reader understands historical realities. For example, in Cherie Priest’s Clockwork Century series, when she talks about the dangers that Captain Croggon Buearegard, a former slave and airship captain, faces, or the resistence of occupied New Orleans, or the importance of Mexican government officials investigating these yellow-sap zombies, or just the awesomeness of Princess (and she is awesome)–all of that conflict and adventure is forgrounded by the complexisies of the Civil War and the roles various minority groups had.

Another example is Benjanun Sriduangkaew’s “The Governess and We” from Steampunk World: a story of spycraft in Siam during the reign of King Mongkut. This is also a story about three women, two fictional and one historical: Aunrampha the palace spymaster to the Thai throne, the tinker Ging, and Anna, popularly-known as the English governess to the King (and also not as known, a mixed race Anglo-Indian woman and a suffragette). The King and I is what the West knows about Anna Leonowens’ time in Siam, but Sriduangkaew changes our perceptions of the truths we take for granted from one fictional story by presenting us with another based on other histories.

So when we look at events like Ferguson and people say, “How could this happen?” they are saying this because they have only heard one particular set of stories about life in the US. If they blame the people of Ferguson for overreacting or putting their police force in a bad light, they are believing onestoryover reality. Everyday we are bombarded by biased media and perceptions we take for granted as “normal”. Speculative fiction — especially steampunk — overtly create gonzo, funhouse mirror reflections of our own society, but in that process show how our “normalities” are equally based on fictions.

In this particular case, taking a stance on Ferguson on this blog is taking a side with what I think steampunk does. Storytelling itself is never neutral, apolitical, ahistorical, or a pointless fantasy, but communicates with the world around us. Stories can bridge the chasms of misunderstanding that form between people through empathy. For a genre based on lies about reality, steampunk requires you to understand our reality deeply in order to appreciate the lie. And by seeing through the lies, you can also find a reason to fight for a greater truth.

Like this:

Janisha Chatterjee is a woman tangled up in layered identities. She lives during the heyday of British imperial rule, which is powered by mysterious technology known as Annapurnite. The privileged daughter of an Indian government official, Jani is an accomplished citizen of Empire—modern, secular, and studying medicine at Cambridge. She feels increasingly at odds, however, with the world around her: not fully fitting in as a mixed-race woman on the streets of London or in the market squares of Delhi. She also has growing reservations about the Raj, despite her father’s accomplishments as Minister of Security.

When her father falls gravely ill, she takes the first dirigible back east. The Rudyard Kipling’s journey, unfortunately, is cut short by a Russian attack that kills nearly everyone on board. One of the few survivors amongst the wreckage, Jani discovers that the airship had been transporting a most unusual prisoner. This stranger bestows a dangerous gift to Jani that reveals the British Empire’s source of military might…. and a dire warning about a threat which endangers the entire world.

Viceroy Chang, cyborg steampunk panda and my convention companion, has an very important message to our readers:

“Hands up! Don’t shoot!”

See? He’s a pretty up with current events and both of us have been upset about the violence happening in Ferguson against protesters after the shooting of Mike Brown in Ferguson, MO. Often, it’s easy to slip into the “convention bubble” and ignore the serious issues affecting others. Like how we should keep the “punk” in steampunk, we should also work toward dismantling historically-created systems of oppression when we see it, and not just make it our Alt Hist fantasy.

Dragon*Con is coming up in less than a week. Along with conducting an array of panels and meeting with book people (contact me for available appointments), at the convention I will be wearing and selling black ribbons in protest against police brutality and the death of Mike Brown. Ribbons will be “pay-as-you-wish” — I’ll accept anything from a copper Abe Lincoln to a Benjamin.

Black Ribbon Against Police Brutality

All proceeds will be donated to several organizations to help the citizens of Ferguson & the Brown family when I return from the convention. The orgs haven’t been chosen yet, because I don’t know which ones will still need support in a couple of weeks, but it will be one or two on this list of grassroots organizations(EDIT 8/25: NEW LINK HERE). People are, of course, welcome to donate directly to any of them now.

For those of you who don’t know my face (and hey, with thousands of congoers, it can get pretty hectic), I’ll be sporting this arm band while walking around the con. Feel free to flag me down to donate and ask for a ribbon.

I strongly recommend folks pre-order the books if they are planning to purchase for two reasons. One–it guarantees that you get this awesome book ASAP for your immediate enjoyment. And Two–from a publishing standpoint, books that have strong pre-orders look good in the eyes of distributors and will help keep the book in stock in the long run.

About Beyond Victoriana

The Nutshell ExplanationBeyond Victoriana is the oldest-running blog about multicultural steampunk and retro-futurism--that is, steampunk outside of a Western-dominant, Eurocentric framework. Founded in 2009, Beyond Victoriana focuses on non-Western cultures, underrepresented minorities in Western histories (Asian / Pacific Islander, Middle Eastern, First Nation, Hispanic, black / African & other marginalized identities), and the cultural intersection between the West and the non-West.